SUNRISE & SUNSET CALCULATOR
What time is sunset today — and how much daylight do you actually get? This free calculator shows sunrise, sunset, solar noon and total daylight for any US city and any date, and then answers the question most tools skip: is today longer or shorter than yesterday, and by how much? Everything is computed in your browser; nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Sunrise
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Sunset
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Times are calculated with the standard NOAA solar equations and are typically accurate to within two or three minutes. Like published sunrise tables, they assume sea level and average atmospheric refraction — a hill, a tall building, or an unusually clear or hazy sky will shift what you actually see by a minute or two.
☀️ Understanding Your Daylight
1️⃣ Sunrise Isn't When the Sun Reaches the Horizon
Officially, sunrise is the moment the sun's upper edge first appears — not its centre — and the atmosphere bends light enough that you see the sun while it is still geometrically below the horizon. Together these push sunrise about two minutes earlier and sunset about two minutes later than pure geometry would suggest. That is why this calculator, like the U.S. Naval Observatory tables, uses a solar altitude of −0.833° rather than zero.
🌗 The Earliest Sunset Is Not on the Shortest Day
Most people assume the winter solstice has both the latest sunrise and the earliest sunset. It doesn't. Because Earth's orbit is elliptical and its axis is tilted, solar noon drifts by up to about 16 minutes across the year — the "equation of time". In the northern United States the earliest sunset happens in early December, roughly two weeks before the solstice, while the latest sunrise waits until early January. Set the date back and forth in the tool above and you can watch it happen.
📈 Daylight Doesn't Change at a Steady Rate
Around the equinoxes in March and September, day length changes fastest — often two to three minutes per day in the northern states. Near the solstices in June and December it almost stalls, which is where the word "solstice" comes from: sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still). The badge under your results shows the exact gain or loss since yesterday, so you can see the rate change as you step through the calendar.
🌆 Twilight Is Longer Than You Think
Usable light doesn't stop at sunset. Civil twilight — shown in the facts above — lasts until the sun is 6° below the horizon, and it is bright enough to read outdoors or finish a job without lights. In the northern states that adds 30 minutes or more to each end of a summer day. If you're planning an evening outdoors, civil dusk is usually the number that matters, not sunset.
🧭 Latitude Matters More Than Longitude
Longitude shifts when the sun rises; latitude decides how long it stays up. On the June solstice, Miami gets about 13 hours 45 minutes of daylight while Seattle gets nearly 16 hours — same country, same day, over two hours apart. Switch cities in the dropdown on a solstice date and the difference is immediate. Above the Arctic Circle the effect goes all the way: the sun simply doesn't set, and this tool will say so instead of printing a time.
📅 Planning Around the Light
Daylight is a scheduling constraint as much as a weather one — for a wedding, a move, a hike, a photo shoot, or a drive you'd rather not finish in the dark. Once you know the date, our business day calculator tells you which working day it lands on, the countdown timer counts down to it, and you can set a free reminder so it doesn't sneak up on you.